Donald Silverman at his Boca Raton home. (Palm Beach Post photo)
Sarah Silverman, who made news this past summer when she called out Bernie bros for not supporting Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention, is performing Saturday at the Hard Rock Live.
One Boca Raton resident who’s likely to be there is her equally opinionated father, Donald Silverman. The apple doesn’t far fall from the tree, as Post reporter Staci Sturrock learned a few years ago when she interviewed Boca’s curmudgeon of comedy.
Here is her story:
He lives in a tastefully decorated home in a lovely gated community in Boca Raton. He plays tennis and bikes and swims regularly. He worships South Florida’s climate and clearly adores his wife, Janice, and their large family.
So what’s eating snowbird Donald Silverman?
Despite more than a dozen winters in Boca, the 74-year-old continues to be perplexed by the behavior of his fellow Boca residents.
“I started coming here in the winter because I was old. It’s hard to explain now. I didn’t know Boca was Boca,” he says. “I couldn’t get over the behavior of a lot of the people down here. The light changes from red to green, and the horn starts going because you haven’t moved an 1/8 of an inch.
“I so don’t understand.”
Silverman, the father of comedian/actress Sarah Silverman and three other daughters, shares his befuddlement daily, in 140 characters or less, with more than 16,500 followers on Twitter.
A recent Tweet from his @RantsFromBoca account (subtitle: “Examples of Boca folks believing they are entitled”) — written in Silverman’s typical overheard-at-the-club style: “Boca midnight is 10 PM. And that includes New Year’s Eve. We go to the early bird special, wheeze Happy New Year at 9 and are asleep by 10.”
A few more:
“I didn’t know you could buy Splenda at Costco. I thought you had to steal it at restaurants. It’s still cheaper to take it at restaurants.”
“Entitled Boca gal comes late to exercise class, goes over to woman in front and tells her she is standing in her spot.”
“Why do Boca men die before their wives? They want to.”
“I didn’t know you could buy Splenda at Costco. I thought you had to steal it at restaurants. It’s still cheaper to take it at restaurants.”
“Entitled Boca gal comes late to exercise class, goes over to woman in front and tells her she is standing in her spot.”
“Why do Boca men die before their wives? They want to.”
Silverman’s sense of humor comes down heavily on Republicans, the rich and the married women of Boca. Will you think it’s funny? It depends, he jokes, “on what side of the Intracoastal you live on.”
Sarah Silverman. (Getty Images)
Among Silverman’s most ardent fans: his sarcastic, sharp-tongued daughter Sarah Silverman.
“I personally am endlessly amused by his Tweets,” she said in an email. “It’s an interesting insight into his daily thoughts. Sometimes he tweets from his point of view, and other times he tweets from the exact opposite point of view. But there’s an absolute power behind each of them, and they all say the same thing — ‘These rich (right wing) a******* sure are some misguided bitches.’ (But more eloquent than that.)”
One of Sarah Silverman’s two Emmy Awards has a place of honor near the front door of Silverman’s home. Upstairs, Silverman’s small office is adorned with photos of Sarah and her three older sisters.
“My four daughters adore each other, which is my main accomplishment in life,” he says.
Although he graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in social work, Silverman pursued a career in retail, and owned a small group of clothing stores in New Hampshire, where he lives six months a year.
But his do-gooder strain runs deep. He remains in touch with three young people he guided through Palm Beach County’s Guardian ad Litem program, and in 2003 he was honored for his work with The Haven, a Boca Raton group home for boys.
“You always tell the kids someday maybe you can pass it on to someone else,” he says.
One subject that surfaces regularly in Silverman’s Tweets is the issue of hunger, particularly the fact that 40,000 people worldwide die from starvation and malnutrition-related diseases every day. “Why should so many people be hungry today? It doesn’t make sense to me,” he says. “I have a lot of trouble comprehending jewelry versus hunger.”
On a lighter note, Silverman also doesn’t understand the tendency of some older men to marry much younger women.
“You see them all the time,” he says. “I cannot imagine wanting to do that in a million years. To marry a younger woman to show her off? It makes less sense to me than the Bentley. At least you don’t have to buy the Bentley jewelry every month to keep it happy.”
Despite his curmudgeonly Twitter persona, Silverman says he doesn’t want to come off as a reverse snob.
“I don’t want to be seen as pontificating on my bandstand. What right do I have to do that?” he says. “I live a very nice life.”
